


Dressing the Part

by mylittleredgirl



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Coming of Age, Gen, Missing Scene, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-23
Updated: 2015-07-23
Packaged: 2018-04-10 18:32:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4402700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mylittleredgirl/pseuds/mylittleredgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which B'Elanna Torres puts on the uniform.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dressing the Part

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sophiagratia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophiagratia/gifts).



> Written in 2014 for sophiegrace. Pre-series through post-Endgame. Mention of canon Paris/Torres.

1.

The _USS Gujarat_ is in orbit; B’Elanna stayed up half the night to catch sight of it in the sky as it arrived.

Most of the colonists and researchers on Kessik IV are civilians, so it’s strange to see Starfleet officers among the shops in town, dining in homes with old friends, delivering a visiting lecture at the high school that B’Elanna is still too young to attend. She develops a sudden interest in her mother’s work to be able to observe the visiting geologists up close, and notices that they stand differently than most of the people she knows. Their hair is smooth, their skin pale and smooth from a life in space, their voices full of authority and confidence even when they’re asking a seven-year-old child for directions.

Her mother is less enthusiastic about their visitors, complaining at every turn about miscalibrated Starfleet equipment and unwelcome assistance.

B’Elanna assumes her mother doesn’t like Vulcans, but Miral corrects:

“I don’t like _uniforms_.”

 

2.

It smells like animal and leather and the smoky musk that fills the whole school, the whole planet. She has to stand with her arms held half a foot out from her sides to keep the tunic from sliding off one shoulder or the other. B’Elanna is smaller than other girls her age, shorter, skinner, with narrow shoulders and a weak forehead.

“You wouldn't want to wear a _child’s_ uniform,” the towering Klingon woman who runs the school says, not offering her the choice. Four days ago, when she was shipped off from Kessik, she was considered a child. Apparently on Q’onos, 12 years old is already the age of no more excuses.

B’Elanna’s aim is to keep quiet and out of sight, because none of the attention she has received here so far has been positive, so she holds her arms out to the side and wears the weighted armor Klingons find appropriate for secondary school. She wonders how many other students have worn this.

Whether it looked any better on them.

 

3.

They hand her a bundle of red and black fabric at registration and call her _Cadet_.

She gets to her new quarters and unfolds her uniform. The soft all-weather fabric feels like a flag of freedom and adulthood, a future of space and skill and never being alone in a crowd, because no matter how Klingon she looks or doesn’t she’ll be wearing _the same thing_.

Her throat chokes up and she swallows it down. She doesn’t know when her roommate will arrive, or if one of the orientation liaisons milling around campus will pop in to make sure she's settling in okay. She can’t cry on her first day at Starfleet Academy because she’s read her acceptance letter a hundred times, but it feels like someone might still change their mind.

 

4.

She almost tears it to pieces instead of putting it on, pulls the black and gold fabric taught in her hands and imagines it's Chakotay. She wants to know what the Starfleet captain said to him, if she threatened them, or if this is just some twisted and personal cosmic joke. They're not only stranded, not only was her ship destroyed, not only was she kidnapped and mutilated and barely even _crawled_ out of that godforsaken alien planet alive, but to top it all off, to really put a nice solid valve seal on the end of this day, she gets to put on a _Starfleet uniform_.

She’s surprised their doctor didn’t take away her civilian clothes, leaving her nothing else to change into, but that's the Starfleet way: giving the semblance of choice when the outcome is predetermined. Abandon colonies in the DMZ voluntarily or be driven out by Cardassians. Resign from the Academy or be discharged. Obey a Starfleet captain or refuse, scream and pound her fists, find out if the security guards roaming the ship would stun her with their phasers or throw her in the brig or if Chakotay would just take her aside and gently tell her he's disappointed in her, because damn him, but he's always known how to hit her where it hurts.

She puts it on, complete with communicator that screams STARFLEET and lets the uniform swallow her whole.

 

5.

Seska, god damn her, _laughs._

“What’s this?” she asks when she composes herself, gesturing to B’Elanna’s face and then reaching over to flick at her straightened hair.

B’Elanna grabs her friend’s intruding hand hard enough to leave a mark and glares. “It’s nothing.”

Seska’s not one to be put off by B’Elanna fighting back. “Oh, come on, _Lieutenant_. I’ve never even seen you wear lipstick before. Who are you trying to impress? Or is this part of the senior officer dress code?”

“I thought you of all people would be thrilled.” After all, even when they were seven days in the badlands without showers, Seska always took the time to fix her makeup and tidy her hair. She called it her one feminine indulgence; B’Elanna always told her she was wasting her time on vanity.

Seska shrugs and flicks at B’Elanna’s hair again, drawing her hand back too quickly for B’Elanna to grab her. “It’s funny. You look like someone else.”

“Well, I’m not,” B’Elanna says aloud, but she’s thinking, _That’s the idea._

 

6.

She’s on her fourth uniform of the day, not a record, but close to it. The baby threw up on #1, #2 was a broken seal and a coolant leak, and #3 was the baby again. At least, in the Alpha Quadrant, spare parts (and spare uniforms) abound. The updated black-and-grey uniforms might look sleeker, but they sure show a lot of dirt.

Still, it’s been a day, and not just because her mother is planning on attending the big Starfleet to-do celebrating Voyager’s return to Federation space sixty days ago. As she tears through her quarters, whisper-shouting apologies to Tom for being late while she changes into her dress uniform, she wants nothing more than to fall into bed, pull the covers over her head, and wait for the dust to settle.

They’re late for the ceremony. B'Elanna spots her mother in the crowd right away; she’s hard to miss in a sea of Starfleet uniforms with admiral rank bars.

She has seen her mother since Voyager’s return, of course. She spent a week being genuinely surprised at how kindly she fussed over her granddaughter and a little put out about how completely the elder Miral seemed to adore Tom. (“You know, from what you told me, I expected her to threaten to cut my throat for marrying you.” “Careful, Paris, or I’ll suggest it.”)

Still, this is different, because it’s a Federation function instead of a family one. She’s not used to the expression on her mother’s face, watching her from the audience.

After the ceremony, after she breaks free from congratulating officers whose names she doesn’t know, she hears Klingon boots on the floor and feels her mother’s strong hands on her shoulders and she realizes what that expression is: _Pride_.

“I’m glad you came,” B'Elanna hears herself say. “I know you don’t like uniforms.”

Miral nods. “But you, Lanna. You wear it well.”

~end~


End file.
